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66 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: “Tactical Urbanism””

    1. I think Mike snuck a headline regarding the Better Buses into Sunday’s early Roundup, but I missed the budget update! Rinck continues to impress.

      1. ah, I didn’t realize Sunday video posts also had mini-roundups in them, thanks for the info!

      2. They don’t usually, but Mike put a few headlines in the most recent one since we delayed this roundup to today.

    2. I linked to a Times article that spanned the general issue of bus lanes on Denny, Aurora, and Rainier. It said, “Alexis Mercedes Rinck said this week she’d push to expand transit-only lanes on three of the city’s busiest streets.” I didn’t think one candidate supporting it was enough to move the needle; the noteworthy thing was that the broader public was talking about this issue. I may have underestimated the significance of Rinck’s move.

      Jason Li, the Fix the L8 and Race the L8 series author, is working on another article about Denny Way’s travel mode share. I assume it will be ready to publish in a week or two.

      1. We were also quite surprised at how quickly this got support from council. We were actually getting ready to push council to help her get the votes she needed until she told us that she already had them. Even so I was admittedly still unsure if it would get enough co-sponsors but glad to see those fears were unfounded

    3. Metro has had at least two or three alerts this month saying real-time information was unavailable.

    4. Diction: BAT lanes, not bus lanes. The councilmember and activists have followed SDOT and mayor into that error.

      1. I have personally been using “bus lane” rather than “BAT lane” in my article as it’s jargon that could be confusing to the average Seattle resident. However, you are correct that these would be BAT lanes and we have clearly stated several times that we do not wish to ban right turns.

    5. If Ballard Link has to be a stub line, Interbay Athletic complex would be a surprisingly convenient and easy site for a small maintenance base.

      1. It would, but it would also be surprisingly unpopular. No, if we assume the continuation of Interbay Yard, the right place is across the BNSF yard at the south end where cruise line patrons park. However, Glenn has said that he heard rumblings that BNSF may sunset operations there. The classification trackage to the west of the main line would be a perfect place for it.

      2. There was a whole thread on here a couple months or so back from commenters I didn’t recognize. I don’t know if what they said has any connection to reality.

      3. Wouldn’t Seattle Initiative 42 make it basically impossible to use parkland unless it was replaced nearby with equivalent usage type?

  2. I hope this isn’t too off topic, but I have noticed in the last few days that King County Metro’s real-time data (at least on the pantograph app) seems to be 2 to 2.5 minutes behind real-time as opposed to the 30-60 seconds behind it used to be. Other agencies appear to be unaffected. (Pierce transit often appears to update its real-time data 5-15 seconds behind) Anyone know what is going on?

    1. Hmm… I use OneBusAway and it has been mostly accurate. And by accurate, within a minute of lag. However, it was completely offline this past weekend.

    2. Aiden C,

      Same here, I recognize there was a recent outage of real time information, yet when the alert went away the buses remained with very good real time data. The day after was when it began to show 2m or more of refresh time. And many, many more ghost buses. ST, CT, and PT are fine.

    3. This is an open thread, so nothing (transit related) is off-topic. Or, to put it without using a double-negative, it is definitely on-topic.

    4. All Midweek Roundups, Friday Roundtables, and Sunday Movies are Open Threads, so any transit or land-use topic is appropriate for the comments there.

      Note to editors: in the open thread blurbs it’s time for another round of explaining what open thread means for new readers.

    5. The real-time data feed is full of gaps and errors for various reasons that has been a long-term project to fix. Each front-end app has its own algorithm to interpolate what the real situation is. Does Pantograph also interpolate or does it just publish the raw data?

      On the agencies’ station displays in the past week (Link, RapidRide G, other) I’ve noticed “Now” appearing around two minutes before the vehicle arrives, but this isn’t unusual and could be simply a last-minute delay (bus misses traffic light, disabled passenger takes time to board, car in front turning, car encroaches bus lane).

      1. Mike,

        I think there was some extended outage specifically in Pantograph App itself followed by KCM’s real-time feed outage.
        At least one day last week I noticed that Pantograph was showing nothing but stop arrival board does show the arrivals correctly.

    6. Last week it was worse. There was no KCM buses on the app in the morning. In the afternoon, the data feed seems to be back, but completely incorrect as if all the data points were mis-indexed.
      I was at 3rd at Pine and Pantograph seemed to have all the buses on the map, but when I paid attention, I found out none of the buses running past me showed up correctly on the app.

    1. Yes. Now we need to convince them of a couple more things:

      1) Run smaller, automated trains from Ballard to Westlake.
      2) Improve the bus system to West Seattle instead of building West Seattle Link.

      These all go together. If you do all this then not only do you not need a second tunnel, you leave the existing tunnel alone. Just like we will when East Link is done, you run trains twice as often to the UW as you do to the southern and eastern branch. There is a lot to be said for this.

      Otherwise there are several options:

      1) Branch to Ballard with West Seattle Link. This works but it means running lots of trains through downtown. You still have twice as many trains going to the UW but they are spaced unevenly. That is OK but weird.

      2) Branch to Ballard without West Seattle Link. This is OK except now you don’t have as many trains running to the UW. You still deal with crowding to the north. You can always run stub trains (from Lynnwood to SoDo) but that would require running lots of trains through downtown (see above).

      3) No Branch but West Seattle Link. This means all the trains head towards the UW. This could work if they improve headways through downtown and further north. It is unlikely all the trains would go to Lynnwood. One train would turn back at Northgate. North of Northgate you would have the uneven frequency. For example if the trains are running every ten minutes from West Seattle, SeaTac and Bellevue they would run every 3 minute 20 seconds through the UW. But in Shoreline there would be a 3 minute 20 second gap, then a 6 minute 40 second gap, etc. It works even though it is weird. (There are probably systems around the world that do this — it probably isn’t that weird.)

      All of these could work but the first option (no West Seattle Link, automated trains to Ballard) is likely not only the cheapest option but the best.

      1. 3b) West Seattle Link, and branch further north.

        One option would be the Ballard Spur. That’d mean breaking into the tunnel around U-District Station, but if we’re already considering breaking into the DSTT, is that still out of consideration?

        Another, much cheaper, option would be a short above-ground branch north of the Maple Leaf portal. Maybe it could branch off just north of Northgate Station and go either west to Greenwood or east to Lake City?

      2. “One option would be the Ballard Spur.”

        In other words, a South-UDistrict-Ballard line. I think that’s too much to expect from ST at this point. It’s a hard enough lift just to get it to agree to cancel DSTT2 and maybe an automated Ballard-Westlake line. The ballot measure said it would serve the SLU regional center. I agree on the long-term merits of a Ballard-UW line or branch, but I think it’s too much to get ST to consider for this point in the ST3 project. Plus, why should busting into the tunnel at U-District station be any easier or cheaper than busting into it around Westlake?

      3. “a short above-ground branch north of the Maple Leaf portal.”

        That’s actually similar to the Northgate-Lake City-Bothell line that’s in ST’s long-range plan. Although that’s envisioned as a transfer at Northgte station, not a branch from downtown. And now with Stride 3 being built at Shoreline South, that may make the board lean toward having a Link line terminate at Shoreline South instead of Northgate. (Notably, that would miss Lake City again.)

      4. Yeah, I agree with Mike. To be clear, I think a Ballard Spur from UW to Ballard is a much better value. But it would be significantly different than the ST3. I think Ballard Link (via South Lake Union and Interbay) as a standalone, automated line is not. Thus it would be a lot easier, both politically and legally.

        That being said I do think it should cross the ship canal to the west and be oriented towards the UW (not oriented towards an extension to the north). An extension to the north would add value but Ballard-UW would add a lot more (since it would better compliment our bus system).

      5. “That being said I do think it should cross the ship canal to the west and be oriented towards the UW (not oriented towards an extension to the north).”

        The best thing would be to make it capable of doing either one or both.

      6. Mike, it would actually be more difficult to break into the tubes around U District station because they are just that: compression tubes dug by a TBM. “Around Westlake” — at least, anywhere east of the curve at Third Avenue — the DSTT is a cut and cover trench tunnel. The compression tubes stop at the south side of Pine Street. You can breach a trench tunnel wall by simply gnawing through it with a TBM. It creates a big mess of course, and you need to reinforce the wall on either side of the borehole before the gnawing takes place, but it’s a mess that doesn’t collapse the roof.

        You can’t just dig into a large diameter compression tunnel because that will collapse the roof. You have to dig what is essentially a station box around the tubes while you support them.

        That means that you have to pour slab in narrow strips UNDER them while using the earth between the strips to support them and then switch to holding them up by new supports placed on the strips and excavating and pouring the intermediate strips — all as devilishly hard a thing to do as it is to read. Next you very carefully disassemble the upper 3/4 of the compression rings. Then you can go do work on the track structure and add the turnouts.

      7. The best thing would be to make it capable of doing either one or both.

        Yes, ideally that would be accomplished by stacking the tunnels. I don’t know if that would be possible given that huge sewer main that uses the Ship Canal’s depths to bury North Seattle’s sewage on its way to Discovery Park, though. An engineering question for the consultants.

      8. The best thing would be to make it capable of doing either one or both.

        Yeah, sure, I could see a branch there but I don’t see that much value. Just to back up here, assume the train crosses the canal at around 26th. For sake of argument assume it is tunneled. It then curves to serve 22nd & Market (give or take a block or two). This is it for now. It connects to the 40 quite well. The RapidRide D is sent to the main part of Ballard. This works out well.

        Eventually the train is extended east. It serves 15th (or 14th in a pinch). It doesn’t matter as much because there is another station to the west. It then serves 8th before following the slope of the hill to connect to Fremont. This is a tricky station but as I’ve written before I think you can serve both the walk-up riders and those on the RapidRide E by putting a station close to the troll. Then you dogleg up to Wallingford and connect to the U-District Station (and possibly go farther).

        That means it would connect to every north-south transit corridor. This is where it gets a lot of its riders. Yes, people from Fremont walk to the station and can get to the U-District much faster than before. But anyone on the Aurora corridor (where the transit is both fast and frequent) will be able to get to the U-District really quickly as well. Same goes for Greenwood Avenue. Same goes for 8th, 15th and 24th. It is all about connectivity.

        So now imagine it branches in Ballard. One line goes up 24th and serves 24th & 65th before serving Crown Hill (85th & 15th). Then what? You want to eventually connect to Northgate but that is not easy. What exactly does that get you, anyway? If you are headed to Ballard or Interbay you might as well just take the main line and then transfer to the other line. If you are headed to the Seattle Center you might as well transfer downtown. The same is true if you are on a bus. If you are riding the RapidRide E from Bitter Lake you might as well transfer by the Fremont Troll. It is a little faster but it isn’t the game-changer that UW-Ballard would be. Unlike Ballard-UW it doesn’t add that much in terms of connectivity. It is mainly — at best — a way to serve two or three potential stations between Northgate and Ballard. This is good but I doubt it would be worth the money.

      9. Just for the record on the branch at Ballard issue, I agree with Ross’s analysis. A stacked curve with stubs would be a nice-to-have in case Ballard turned into Yaletown, but the east-west lines to the U District is the main expansion to pursue.

        So, if stacked tunnels are possible, then allow for a branch. Otherwise, dig level tunnels and aim for Fremont and the U District.

    2. Thanks William C for highlighting this issue. The link in the roundup went under my radar. The STB authors are interested in supporting this single-tunnel alternative and promoting an automated separate Ballard line that would avoid the need to branch into DSTT1. So it’s wonderful that ST is finally taking the first part of this seriously, and doing the comparison studies we’ve been asking for for at least four years. Now we need to get ST to take a fair look at the second part. It doesn’t have to commit to it now, just give it a complete comparison so that ST and the public can make a fully-informed decision on it.

    3. My concern is that ST will still try to look for ways to keep DSTT2 alive. A promise to study it is not a guarantee that the study will be objective or very detailed or accurate. There have already been backroom real estate deals underway that our elected officials won’t want to renege on. All of us need to stay vigilant to make sure that it gets a fair shake.

      That said, it’s a hopeful sign when a companion study to change to trains with higher capacity has also been mentioned. It was the forecasted deficient capacity between Symphony and CID that was the primary justification for DSTT2 in the draft WSBLE EIS a few years ago.

      1. part of what they are determining is what they can do to upgrade the tunnel so that blockages are even more rare than they are now.

        but the second tunnel as they are planning to build it doesn’t give you redundancy either because the tracks don’t go to the same place and they don’t connect. For instance coming from Northgate a train can’t switch to the ballard line to avoid a tunnel blockage.

        And, selfishly, I really dislike that a second tunnel means that I can’t use stadium station to go to mariner’s games because the train will bypass it in order to get into that tunnel!

      2. “the second tunnel as they are planning to build it doesn’t give you redundancy either because the tracks don’t go to the same place and they don’t connect.”

        I tend to agree.

        For trains it’s not redundant at all. Even the track layouts in SODO are planned to make it difficult to send a train to a different platform headed in the same direction. Every adjacent track in SODO is planned to run in the opposite direction. I think most people don’t realize that this is what ST has planned, and instead mistakenly think that it will be easy to quickly send a train down another tunnel.

        Redundancy is really just for riders. If one tube can’t operate, passengers can use the other line. However the 3D mega “chutes and ladders” path as proposed inside the stations are going to involve walking hundreds of feet and using multiple escalators or elevators so it will add several minutes. The ironic thing is that we have rider redundancy already with Third Avenue buses — which will actually be easier and faster to use than a deep DSTT2 would be.

  5. It sure seems like Dow is signaling that there is only going to be one tunnel.

    There are a few hoops to jump through – mainly justifying how it is possible today to do it in one tunnel when they said it was flatly impossible prior to the st3 vote -but you can already see the spin he is putting on that.

    I do find his statements about two-tunnel-redundancy entirely disingenuous though. As we all know the two tunnels they have designed aren’t redundant at all because the trains would go different places without the ability to switch to the other track.

    Ironically, if they stick with only tunnel and figure out how to connect Ballard to it then they will in fact get that redundancy if a second tunnel is eventually built.

    1. I think the idea is that if the entire trip were from one end of downtown to the other, you could ride through one tunnel when the other tunnel is closed. The problem is, this is a very niche trip, and one with tons of bus options down 3rd Ave., while the cost of a second tunnel would be enormous.

      I am glad that ST is finally studying the idea of running all trains through a single downtown tunnel, and I hope it pans out.

    2. I think it’s funny that the redundancy provided by a second tunnel is simultaneously used as an argument for and against building it.

      Under current conditions, the tunnel shuts down riders passing through downtown are currently expected to transfer to a shuttle bus and then transfer back to Link.

      Supporters of a redundant tunnel argue that with DSTT2 (and a split spine), riders on the 2 and 3 Lines (East Link and Everett/WS, respectively) would transfer to the 1 Line (Tacoma/Ballard) through downtown.

      Opponents of the redundant tunnel argue that the current tunnel should be upgraded to be more resilient and support higher passenger loads, and that if the Ballard Link Extension tunnel must extend past Westlake, it should go east toward First Hill and the Central District to significantly improve connectivity between those neighborhoods and Downtown.

      1. Yes. A second tunnel would provide redundancy for a small portion of outages. On the other hand, spending money on a second tunnel increases the chances that there will be an outage. It does so in a couple ways. The more you have to maintain, the more likely you will have a failure. Second, the more you spend building a new tunnel, the less you can spend improving the existing one. It is just a really bad idea.

      2. Opponents of the redundant tunnel also point out it would add no redundancy, because the only real shared station is Westlake, and even it is 9 floors under the existing Westlake.

        This means to use the second tunnel as a backup, you wind up with a 8-10 minute multiple escalator trip at Westlake, wait for the train, then walk 3 blocks to get to CID.

        So, DSTT2 is really the worst of both worlds: no added coverage anywhere while not really adding capacity or redundancy.

      3. “Opponents of the redundant tunnel argue that the current tunnel should be upgraded to be more resilient and support higher passenger loads, and that if the Ballard Link Extension tunnel must extend past Westlake, it should go east toward First Hill and the Central District to significantly improve connectivity between those neighborhoods and Downtown.”

        Guess what? A Ballard-CD line would remove some passengers from DSTT1, thus relieving capacity pressure. It could replace trips like this:

        Capitol Hill: 1 Line Ballard-Westlake + 2/3 Line to Capitol Hill.

        First Hill: 1 Line Ballard-Symphony + RapidRide G to Broadway/17th/etc.

        Central District: 1 Line Ballard-Pioneer Square + 3/4 to Jefferson Street/Swedish Cherry Hill/Garfield HS.

    3. “It sure seems like Dow is signaling that there is only going to be one tunnel.”

      It’s way too early to assume that. Dow and the board are looking at it with skepticism. That’s a step forward from closing their eyes and plugging their ears to the possibility. But it doesn’t mean ST is leaning toward it or committing to it now. It’s not Dow’s decision anymore: it’s the board’s. And the same article says:

      “Constantine alluded to the fact that Sound Transit’s study could prove the opposite point: the analysis of trade-offs may end up showing the second tunnel is needed and possibly indispensable, building a case for sequencing it first, if Ballard Link ends up being segmented into multiple projects.”

      In other words, ST may bias the study against single-tunnel by using a strawman scenario. That’s what we thought it might do if it ever agreed to such a study, because that’s what it arguably did in West Seattle and the West Seattle-Burien-Renton extension studies. It had the lamest BRT concept rather than the best possible one, so of course its ridership was low. So we’ll need to watchdog that the comparison report is complete and fair to all the potential alternatives.

    4. Buses could be the redundancy solution if we could get continuous transit lanes on them for the entirety of more routes. Then the difference between buses’ and Link’s travel time and reliability could narrow.

  6. Federal Way Link opening details announced: Saturday Dec 6 at Federal Way station. 9:30am speeches. 11am service starts (approximate time). website Synchronize your countdown timers.

  9. ha ha ha ha. they can’t run one line without massive delays and they think they can run 3. Yes please Sound Transit, your entire reason for existence will be to serve as a warning to others.

  10. Money aside, there are plenty of reasons to prefer a single tunnel – it means easier transfers between the lines and easier access to new lines by not having to be as deep. The only scenario in which riders benefit at all from a second tunnel is if demand is so high that they have to form a queue outside to enter the station.

    The likelihood of this actually happening feels very remote and, even if it did, it would only be during peak travel times, not all day, and there are all sorts of mitigation measures ST could take. They could run the trains more often, put staff outside the busiest stations to manage queuing, or supplement the train with peak-hour express buses.

  11. If a single downtown tunnel were used, I wonder the feasibility of having this train do surface running down 3rd Ave. downtown, tying into the existing Link tracks somewhere around the stadiums for access to the maintenance facilities. Keep in mind that 3rd Ave. could be reconfigured so that half the street is a busway (one lane per direction) and the other half is exclusive right-of-way for the train, so it wouldn’t even require bus/train joint ops, like what used to be done in the downtown tunnel.

    You’d still get a tunnel through SLU and a grade-separated ride between Ballard and Westlake, and it would provide a one-seat ride between Ballard and all of downtown, while connecting to the existing OMF. The catch would be occasional stoplights on 3rd, but the train would still have exclusive right-of-way, and it would only be for parts of the route after most of the passengers have gotten off (I’m assuming most people would be getting off at Westlake). And, as an added bonus, it would have very good connections with 3rd Ave. buses, and the surface-level stations along 3rd Ave. would be relatively cheap to build.

    1. I don’t think you’d want to do 3rd due to the existing trolleybus wire. Ideally, you’d want somewhere you could take two lanes, and at minimum build E Burnside Street type lane separation (ML King puts Link almost in traffic on paved track).

      If you put it on 1st, you could do the CCC streetcar thing down the median and serve Belltown.

      2. Exactly so, Glenn, although First puts the very heavy Link trains on the Pioneer Square vaults south of Yesler. Let’s be honest: the right street for a surface rail line is Fifth Avenue, where so many of the skyscrapers are.

        But the panjandra who own those skyscrapers would be a firm “Are you effyouseekaying KIDDING me? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

        I really don’t see a surface line working, for very physical reasons. First is down in a hole for half of downtown and slams into Pioneer Square. Second has a separated bikeway, and there has to be some street for cars. Third has all that overhead already and let us not forget what lies beneath. The station vaults at Symphony and Pioneer Square may not be able to support topside Link. Fourth, ditto Second, but northbound. Fifth, see above. And Sixth runs into a cliff south of Yesler.

        Ipso facto, any new railway through downtown Seattle is either going to be on stilts or in a tunnel.

    2. One major design challenge is of course train lengths. Downtown has very short blocks. Any surface train Downtown would need to take that into account — maybe even closing some cross street crossings. Portland closed some cross streets to accommodate Max in places.

      1. Depends how long the train actually needs to be. Maybe for just Ballard to downtown, 2 cars is sufficient, if it runs often enough.

        Shorter trains also mean cheaper stations, especially in the underground locations in SLU.

      2. There are no closed cross streets in Portland to accommodate MAX train length. They simply run two car trains, except for very rare emergency cases or deadhead operations east of Ruby Junction.

        The only block in downtown where this doesn’t work is between SW 9th and SW Park as it’s a half width block, and the solution is to just make sure trains never stop there.

        They sometimes made up for it by operating more frequently. Before the pandemic, during peak periods it wasn’t unusual to stand at Rose Quarter and see 4 trains stacked up along Holladay Street, spaced only a few blocks apart. Ridership is so much lower now they only have a couple of trips spaced that tightly.

      3. @ Glenn:

        Wasn’t NE 8th Ave closed to traffic at the NE 7th Ave Max Station? It may have been closed prior to Max.

      4. They could have kept NE 8th open just like they did at 6th or at the downtown stations if they really wanted to, but I think removing 8th was more a matter of creating developable land (and creating the park on the south side of Holladay) by removing the street. 8th is gone for 3 entire blocks, except for a small appendage giving local access.

        It did make it more convenient to put the crosswalk for the MAX station there.

    3. The Downtown Seattle Association would shudder at not reducing 3rd Avenue to 2 lanes per its beautification proposal, or at closing the street for months to install tracks. You could send them a Halloween card with a drawing of your street configuration.

    4. Could the roof of Symphiny station take the weight of trains on 3d Ave? The tunnel was built cut and cover there.

    1. Probably a small frequency reduction given the close proximity of the pinehurst interlocking or use or the pocket track and interlocking just south of the station.

    2. Northgate has a scissors to the south and the pocket to the north, so single-tracking there could at least in theory be accomplished with standard headways. Southbounds would have to run through the pocket to get to the northbound platform, but that’s not an extreme slow-down.

      Yes, of course there would be more interference, leading to less-reliable schedule keeping, but I really doubt that you’d get so much chaos that it would result in bunching. The “window” that a train arrives “downstream” of Northgate will be wider.

      If this were Roosevelt or U District it would be a real problem, because you have to give the southbounds the northbound track all the way from the cross-overs south of Northgate to those south of UW. That’s three platforms and about seven minutes of running.

      Penny wise, pound foolish on the station boxes at U District and Roosevelt.

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